


How to keep negativity out of your life

by Heccate



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Field Trip, Homeschooling, Identity Reveal, IronDad and SpiderSon, OC teacher who is not nice, as original as I can be, but of the civilian identity kind, kinda identity reveal, no one believes Peter, they will be proven wrong, we don't need the kind of negativity Peter gets at school in our lives!, which is prob not very
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 07:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17300390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heccate/pseuds/Heccate
Summary: Another field trip fic where people don't believe that Peter actually has an internship at Stark Industries.Only, he reacts a bit more drastic than in others.





	1. lies, secrets, truths

**Author's Note:**

> For all those lovely people who check for new fics with this trope way too often!  
> (I can't be the only one, right?)

“Mr. Parker, please stay behind for a moment”, Miss Wright called at the end of the physics lesson. Peter sighed and gestured for Ned and MJ to wait outside. He already knew that he wouldn’t like this, as Miss Wright was one of the teachers who were hyperaware of how much money Flash’s parents had donated to the school and were seemingly incapable of seeing the boy as anything but the polite son of generous, powerful people. Peter being someone who often and publicly clashed with Flash did not look good to them, biasing their view of not only his personality but also intelligence.

“Now, Mr. Parker, I know that the past few months were very hard for you, losing both your aunt and uncle in such a short time”, the teacher said when Peter stood before her desk. “It is also highly understandable why you would want to believe in something extraordinary happening to you after those events, and why your new guardian would not want to reprimand you too strongly for it.” Peter looked at her, confused. “Miss Wright, what are y-“ Her tone suddenly lost all sympathy. “I am talking about your pretending to have an internship at Stark Industries. It was a nice story in the beginning, but we have let it continue for too long. Really, couldn’t you even bother to choose a maybe less prestigious company that at least actually offers internships to high school students? Anyway, I wanted to inform you that you must publicly admit to your lie and apologize for keeping it up for so long by lunchtime next Monday. Else, you will not be allowed to join the fieldtrip that will be announced that day.” Peter only stood there, not believing what was happening. “Do you understand, Mr. Parker?” He nodded, “Y-yes, of course.” The teacher gave him a last look before dismissing him.

~~~

Peter still wasn’t back to his usual chattery self when Happy dropped him off at the compound that afternoon. Instead of telling his newly adopted Dad - Tony Stark - all about the plans he had with Ned for the weekend when he saw the man lounging in the living room, Peter just silently settled next to him on the couch and curled into his side. “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?”, Tony asked, gesturing to the mail he had open on his Starkpad. It was formulated much nicer than what Peter’s teacher had told him just hours before, but it amounted to the same: The school thought that Peter was a liar, one they apparently believed wouldn’t even mention being confronted about his behavior to his guardian. “I didn’t know!” Peter wasn’t even sure how he felt about the whole situation. Disappointed? Sad? Angry? “I mean, sure, Flash and his friends are always going on about how they think I’m lying, but they’re just stupid bullies anyway and I don’t care about their opinion, and a lot of teachers tend to overlook everything bad he does… I just didn’t think they _really_ believe that he’s always in the right, I thought they just didn’t want problems with his parents, or the principal if they’d stop donating money…”

Tony sighed as he saw the dejected look on his son’s face and pulled the boy even closer. “Do you remember when we discussed you being homeschooled shortly after the adoption was finalized?” Peter mumbled something affirmative into Tony’s shoulder. “It’s…. I understand why you wanted to stay in school, be normal, share classes with your friends. But at the same time, I just want you to be safe. I don’t want you to have to deal with bullies, with subpar lab equipment, with unmotivated teachers that ignore any input from you because they don’t like it when their students are so much more intelligent then they are. I want you to be and have the best you can be, and I don’t see that happening at Midtown. It’s clear that I won’t be able to protect you from the media forever, and knowing that keeping this adoption secret might solve that problem for a little but only makes others worse… It’s hard.” He pressed a kiss to Peter’s temple. “I just want you to be happy. Promise me you’ll think about it?” Peter pulled back. “You know, I don’t think I want to stay there, not if that is the opinion the teachers have of me… I’m not sure if homeschooling is right for me, either, but maybe we can try it out for a few weeks, and if it doesn’t work out I could go to a different school?” He gave his dad a hopeful look. Tony’s answering smile was brilliant. “Thank you, Pete. Fri, you know how to finalize everything, you have all the paperwork and stuff. Underoos, you wanna come play in the lab with me?” He relished in Peter’s happy laughter. “Sure thing, dad! Did you look at my latest webfluid formula, do you think that could help with making it less brittle in subzero temperatures?”

~~~

Pepper arrived home just as Tony and Peter started to eat. “Hey boys! Pete, little heads-up: The paperwork for next month’s tours of the compound went through today, I found your class on the list, I think it’s next week already?” Then, she looked on fondly but confused as her family dissolved in laughter. “Care to get me in on the joke?” Tony only reopened the mail he got earlier and slid the Starkpad over the table. Pepper’s demeanor immediately lost all humor. No one treated her son this way – even if he wasn’t yet, not officially, not until the wedding. “I can take your reaction to mean that Peter decided to leave this… _Place_ that calls itself a respectable school?” It wasn’t a question, not really. Tony still nodded. “Yes, I just haven’t written them yet because I wanted your input on how to formulate the mail, you’re so talented at passive-aggressive messages and getting your anger across while still being polite!” He meant ‘I know that you want to protect him as much as I do, and I want us to do this together if it’s all we get in this case’, and she knew it. Softening, she sat down next to Peter, asking him about what he did in the lab that day.

~~~

Peter’s (now former) principal was just about to finish his day when a last mail came in. He started to swear halfway through reading it and was cursing his employees by the time he finished. Why, why didn’t Stark at least let him tell the teachers about who took over Peter Parker’s guardianship? But no, the NDA he had to sign explicitly stated that they could not know, to make sure that Peter would be treated as normal as possible. Now they would be ‘the school that lost the Stark heir’ as soon as Stark made the adoption public. Was there any worse publicity? 


	2. Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I survived exams! This is also a bit short, really more setting things up than anything actually happening...  
> It has been pointed out that my paragraphs with lots of direct speech are rather hard to read, and I understand and appreciate the criticism, but I decided to stay consistent in how I write this fic and will try to do better in others!

Ned and MJ were both tense as they entered the school, getting worse when they saw their principal in the front of their classroom. Peter still hadn’t answered their worried texts asking about what Miss Wright had wanted, he hadn’t even said goodbye when walking past them to the waiting Happy the afternoon before. He wasn’t around now either, and they knew he still struggled with loosing his aunt and everything that had followed. Why couldn’t their friend catch a break for once?

~~~

Peter startled awake, thinking he had overslept. It took him a few moments to remember the events of the day before, though sorting through them with a bit of a distance had him realize that he hadn’t texted his friends yet, and that they’d definitely worry when he didn’t come to school without explanation. A look at his phone had him groan – he had a ton of missed messages, and school had started over an hour ago.

 **Petey boy:** _sorry sorry sorry! Was kinda out of it yesterday :/_

 **Petey boy:** _soo….. I will not come to school anymore……._

 **M fucking J:** _yeah, no shit. principal was in our first lssn to tell us_

 **M fucking J:** _what the hell happened yesterday?????_

 **SkyNed:** _must have been BAD_

 **SkyNed:** _you haven’t even told anyone abt Flash, and he’s been even worse recently_

 **Petey boy:** _Miss W gave me an ultimatum to ‘fess up’ bc of how I ‘keep lying’ abt my internship_

 **SkyNed:** _WTF_

 **Petey boy:** _realizing that at least some teachers really think that threw me for a loop_

 **M fucking J:** _understandable_

 **Petey boy:** _and when I told Tony he asked if I’d reconsider homeschooling… I said yes, at least for a trial period……._

 **M fucking J:** _honestly I think getting away from here is the best that can happen to you under the circumstances_

 **Petey boy:** _but I’ll miss you and we won’t have school and teachers and stuff to talk to abt anymore bc I won’t know what happened and I’ll be all alone here and_

 **SkyNed:** _Jeez, Pete, breathe!!_

 **SkyNed:** _we’ll miss you too, but we’ll make sure to meet up OFTEN and stay close and we got this chat and honestly not always talking abt how shitty school is will prob be good for all of us_

 **M fucking J:** _and you talk abt your actual intern friends @ stark tow all the time like you won’t be alone the whole day_

 **M fucking J:** _not to talk abt the avengers who’re at the compound_

 **M fucking J:** _and Tony who will definitely make sure that he is in the same building as you literally all the time bc he worries_

 **SkyNed:** _well, except when he’s out for business or avenging_

 **M fucking J:** _not the time, Ned_

 **SkyNed:** _sorry_

 **Petey boy:** _I_

 **Petey boy:** _thanks guys_

 **M fucking J:** _you’re welcome, looser. ttyl, Harrington is watching_

 **Petey boy:** _don’t get caught!_

Peter threw his phone on the bed and sighed. This would take a while to get used to. “Friday, where’s Dad?”, he asked. “Boss is currently in the lab, he said there’s breakfast in the kitchen and you should come down when you’re ready.”

~~~

“Hey, Pete”, Tony said suddenly, “you know, now that you’re not spending most of your day in a place with questionable security… What would you think about making the adoption public? Only if you want, and we’d make sure to keep you out of the media spotlight for a while yet, but it would mean that they’re already used to your presence a bit when you start taking over the company and stuff, but –“ Peter laughed. “Stop rambling dad! I’d love to be publicly known as your son.” Tony looked up from his armor, “really?” Peter smiled shyly, “yeah, really. Not to rub in it the faces of people like Miss Wright or anything! But because I’m really proud to have you as my dad.” Tony rolled his eyes fondly, “Pete, no one would think you’d do anything for malicious reasons, like, ever.”

They worked in silence for a while. Then, Tony spoke up again, “you know… You might not want to rub it into that teacher’s face, but I’m really not above some petty revenge. What do you think about using that fieldtrip to put a few things straight, and maybe get a head start on the ‘big reveal’?” Peter hummed, deliberating. “Well, Flash’s face alone would definitely be worth it…” Tony grinned, “Friday, call Pep, have her schedule a meeting, that’s what we have conference rooms for, this needs some serious planning!”

~~~

**Petey boy:** _uh oh, Pepper is really taking this serious….._

 **SkyNed:** _????_

 **Petey boy:** _you’ll see next week^^_

 **M fucking J:** _first he leaves us for better funded education, then he starts keeping secrets. What’s next, I ask of you?_

 **SkyNed:** _really Pete, I am disappointed_

 **Petey boy:** _sorry guys, I was sworn to secrecy! You don’t say no when Nat and Pepper tell you to do something. You just don’t._

 **SkyNed:** _Nat as in BLACK WIDOW?????_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MJ's name is due to her annoyance at Peter calling her Michelle for ages because he refused to believe that she considered them close enough for nicknames already xD


	3. The Trip

A call of “Midtown?” silenced the so far excitedly chattering class in the middle of Stark Tower’s lobby. “Yes, that is us”, Miss Wright answered the young woman making her way over. “Perfect!”, she answered. “I am Laura, and I will be your tour guide today. First, a few organizational details. I assume your teacher went over the rules with you, no wandering off etc?” The class murmured affirmatively. “Well, make sure you remember them, our security isn’t very forgiving with this kind of incident. Okay, next is todays plan: We don’t have overly much time before lunch, so we’ll get the Stark Industries/Avengers exhibitions out of the way right now and spend the afternoon in the labs. That okay with you?” This time, the reactions were much livelier. Laura grinned, “in that case, I’ll just hand out your badges for today – remember, visible at all times! – and we’ll be off!”

~~~

The Avengers exhibition was empty but for a lone figure standing in front of the Spiderman display. “Miss Potts?”, Laura called, surprised. The figure turned to them, “oh, Miss Monza! I didn’t know we had a tour scheduled right now, else I would have come down later.” Laura smiled, “it is not a problem. I assume you want to take a last look before the restructuring in a few weeks?” The CEO nodded, “yes, plus I am supposed to give the design team a few inputs concerning what I would like to keep of the current concept. Though, now that I ran into you anyway, who are you showing around today?” Laura gestured towards the group behind her, “these are students of Midtown Science & Tech in Queens.” Pepper took her first direct look at the group, “Midtown, you say? In that case…” Her eyes found Ned and MJ, “you two must be Mr. Parker’s friends! He talks about you a lot, it seems he thinks the worst part of leaving school was leaving you.” MJ made to answer, as Ned was quite obviously too awestruck, but was cut off by Flash. “WHAT?? You seriously know Pe- Parker?”, the boy shouted. Pepper gave him a disapproving look, “yes, I know the intern working directly under my fiancé. I thought his school was informed about the internship?”. The disapproving glance then wandered to Miss Wright, who had not reacted at all to Flash’s behavior and was instead gaping at Pepper, who scoffed. “Well, the communication in your school doesn’t seem to be quite up to snuff… Advice for next time: maybe ask your principal or the involved company for confirmation before accusing promising students of lying about an internship?” Her whole demeanor was suddenly back to friendly, and she took her leave with a smile and a wave at the stunned group. A good part of it now had quite a few things to think about.

~~~

The lab the class was currently touring would easily make it into their highlights – robots helping with disaster relief had aspects appealing to any of them, and they were allowed to question the scientists working on them for a bit after looking at their equipment. The only ones who were looking decidedly unhappy were Flash and Miss Wright, apparently having believed that their embarrassment from earlier would go ignored due to the excitement of the rest of the day. This hope died with the sidelong glances they got when one of the programmers proudly mentioned that ‘Boss’ personal intern’ had been so interested in their project that he asked Mr. Stark if he could help a bit, apparently having solved an issue they had with joints breaking much earlier than their calculations had predicted. With what Miss Potts had said earlier, the class was reasonably sure that they were talking about Peter, a few wondering to themselves how they had ever managed to believe Flash when he claimed that Peter wouldn’t have the needed intelligence to work here – had they all collectively forgotten who held the top grades and usually handed even exams in much earlier than everyone else? They definitely should have realized that when he was furiously scribbling in his notebooks, he wasn’t struggling with whatever they were doing in school, but instead working on much more advanced stuff.

~~~

The last part of the tour was a Q&A session with one of the interns. Not the head intern, as planned – “We apologize for that. You were supposed to be the first group to meet him, as he recently had a schedule change that would allow him to be around more often, but he took a few days off to take care of some other issues this change brought up.” – but his ‘right hand person’, as they called themselves. It was very interesting, and MJ couldn’t resist steering her classmates towards asking about high school interns. The answer brought Flash and Miss Wright even more sideway glances and snickers, because it wasn’t a variation of ‘we don’t have those, sorry’ but ‘those are very rare, as they have to be brought in by the head scientists of the department they will work in and have to prove themselves to Mr. Stark and Miss Potts personally’. Natasha, who was watching the security feed of the room, made a note to tell Peter that she approved of his friend. The girl was sure to be successful in whatever she planned to do with her life, and it seemed that she would have Peter’s back in his endeavors as well.

~~~

Getting comfortable for the ride back, MJ flicked through her sketchbook. In between a few renditions of Flash and Miss Wright looking something from unhappy to horrified, she had written down some - obviously completely unrelated - conversation snippets she had overheard during the tour.

“…important Press conference on such short notice! It’s not every day a big company gets a new heir, what do they….”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to tutor him in Spanish. Still wondering why he’d suddenly leave school, wasn’t he really against it a few months ago?”

“...hope this means little Stark gets to help out more…”

“...pairs for the next training, how about Petey with Thor, and Nat can work with…”

~~~

Back at the compound, Tony and Peter surfaced from the ‘shop after spending the day working on the Iron Spider. They made their way to the couch, brainstorming ideas for future upgrades while Friday queued up her compilation of the field trip’s highlights.

The other Avengers and Pepper had their own movie night at the tower – with the spotlight on how their contributions to the plan (and the execution of it) had worked out. After all, a good strategist makes sure to review their plans and actions afterwards, to make sure they improve their techniques.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make this something worthy of Pepper and Natasha's planning, as such it is much more subtle than a direct confrontation or anything including Tony (to make sure he didn't turn up anyway, he was left at home with instructions to keep Peter distracted), I hope you liked it regardless!  
> MJ is cool to write, she picks up on things so quickly^^


	4. A Public Announcement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is short, it is late, and it was supposed to be the end...  
> The good news (I hope?) is that I didn't find a way to make this longer in a way that I liked, so I gave up and decided to post it as-is and write another chapter taking place a bit after this one^^

When MJ shared a link in the class chat that included the teachers for required subjects, everyone else was understandably confused. Not even a comment to explain what this was about? What would she even share with her classmates, much less her teachers? She usually gave the impression of being above interactions with most of them outside of school.

They understood much better after they had watched the video she had uploaded to what appeared to be her personal blog. Not that anyone wouldn’t have been aware of its content only hours later anyway. Her sharing was probably for the satisfaction of being there when people shared their immediate reactions in the group.

_Tony Stark enters the stage smiling and silent despite the questions being shouted at him. He doesn’t say anything until the noise has calmed down._

_“Now, I understand that this is a first for all of us – a spontaneous press conference without a scandal or other major incident that needs clearing up!” The reporters, most of whom are regulars at Stark Industries’ press events, laugh. “Well, I’ll explain in a moment – just promise you won’t interrupt me?” Affirmative murmurs, no one wants to risk what **has** to be a major scoop. Why else would the subject of this event have been kept secret so far? “A year ago now, I first met Spiderman. I had admired what he did from afar for a while then, and I needed help in what is now known as the ‘Civil War’. You can imagine my surprise when the ‘man’ behind the mask turned out to be only 15 years old! I hope you believe me when I say that I would not have brought him to Germany if I had known that it would escalate the way it did. Turning up as a group was mainly meant to show Steve Rogers that there were – are - heroes who don’t support his radical anti-Accords stance. Though that is not what I want to talk about now – today is about a much more personal tragedy. After Germany, I gave Spiderman the newly introduced position of my personal intern. I hoped that he would be safer with my guidance and help with his tech than keeping on working alone. This quickly turned into him being part of the family and team – training with us, sharing team dinners, and wrapping just about everyone at the Avenger Compound and Stark Tower around his little finger. Then, just a few months ago, the boy’s aunt and last living relative died. We quickly decided that we couldn’t let him live with people we didn’t know, both because he is a part of our family and we want him close, and because only few people could understand and help him with his powers and heroics the way we can.” He makes a dramatic pause, then announces with a wide smile: “Today, I am proud to present Peter Parker-Stark, Spiderman and heir of Stark Industries!” Suddenly, Spiderman drops down from where he was ‘sitting’ on the ceiling besides his dad, waving at the journalists. Those caught in the frame express different levels of shock (as most viewers do when they first see videos of the event), though in this video MJ’s laughter is clear to hear. On the stage, Tony Stark wraps his arm around Spiderman’s shoulders, who is removing his mask to reveal his face._

_The press conference doesn’t take much longer after that – the journalists didn’t have the time to prepare for this turn of events so most questions they have a rather generic, mostly about where Peter lives now, whether he likes living with the Avengers, where he goes to school etc. The video ends with Tony warning everyone that people hounding his underage son or printing anything not explicitly stated in sanctioned interviews with him will be sued for all they are worth._

**MoonMoon:** _So._

**MoonMoon:** _This happened._

**dream on:** _yep_

**yeah, nO:** _I can’t even_

**dream on:** _same_

**profession: failure:** _well, he did say that he had an internship_

**MoonMoon:** _this is more than an internship though_

**profession: failure:** _and we didn’t even believe that, why would he have said more_

**halp:** _tru_

**your Queen:** _I bet all those who treated Peter unfairly just because he is actually intelligent and not just here because of his parents’ money are feeling very, very stupid right now…_

**Chief Support:** _Weird how Flash doesn’t have anything to say, he is normally so opinionated on anything Peter-related..._

~~~

Midtown’s principal groaned. Stark had stated that Peter was being homeschooled ‘due to the security concerns inherent to being an Avenger’, but it couldn’t take long for some journalist to dig up the boy’s old school records. At least he could address the issue with Miss Wright and a few other teachers now that the NDA wasn’t holding him back anymore. He would be damned if he lost any more students due to those like the Thompson boy being treated preferentially. 


End file.
